


Fluidity

by DeredereWrites



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Atheist author writing biblical characters, Azrael and Raphael are twins, Canon Manipulation, Crowley Was Raphael Before Falling (Good Omens), Crowley as Raphael, Doctor Who References, Eventual Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Fallen Angels, Gen, He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), I mention gallifrey like once offhandedly, I only know what good omens supernatural and lucifer have taught me, Kinda life and death symbolism, Pain TW, Probably some Deckerstar too, She/Her Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-24 11:51:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21337786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeredereWrites/pseuds/DeredereWrites
Summary: Raphael wanted to know why. She didn't expect to fall.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 91





	1. Chapter 1

Raphael walked quietly down the corridors, not wanting to alert the other Archangels of her presence. She was on her way to have a chat with her mother (who’d started presenting female shortly after Sam- Lucifer and his friends fell) to hopefully get some answers. She knew that her siblings would stop her if she ran into any of them, their mother had been in a bit of a bad mood as of late. 

Apparently, she wasn’t quiet enough. Amenadiel emerged from one of the rooms along the hall.

“Where are you headed, all dressed up like that?” Amenadiel asked, a bit amused.

Raphael tried to look sophisticated and businessy, in hopes of making a better impression on her mother. Red hair fell in spirals around her shoulders, half done up in braids accented with maybe just a bit of glitter. She wore a plain white dress with a bit of gold jewelry. Vivid red, orange, and gold tones filled her wings, accompanied by the constant glimmer of stardust.

She thought for a moment, debating on whether to tell him or not. She decided yes, maybe he could give her some advice.

“I’m going to go see mom. I want some answers,” Raphael said, most certainly speaking more confidently than she felt.

Amenadiel frowned. “You know that’s not a good idea. You shouldn’t question her.”

“Oh, who knows? She might answer me! She might tell me what I want to know and then we can understand why,” Raphael reasoned.

“But she might not. You could fall. Come on, stay here. Azrael, Micheal, and I are all going to go to the gardens later, you can come with,” Amenadiel offered.

“I’ll take you up on that, right after I talk to mom. I’ll see you soon, okay?” Raphael promised.

“I suppose,” Amenadiel said, hesitant to be okay with the situation.

“Great!” Raphael grinned and hugged her brother, then running off down the corridors. “I’ll be back!”

Comforted by the plan for later, she hurried down to the gates to meet her mom. The gates had a beautiful view of the garden of Eden, which was almost done with construction and absolutely bursting with life. The Allmighty was already waiting there for her, casting a bright divine light over everything. 

Raphael slowed to a walk and came to sit beside her, letting her legs dangle a bit over the edge.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” The Allmighty said.

“Stunning,” Raphael agreed.

“I have lots of plans for this place. And the humans will be the ones to put them in action. Though I do hope they do better than Gallifrey. The agents down there say it’s not doing very well,” The Allmighty said offhandedly.

“Yeah. Ah, speaking of.. What do you plan to do? Was Lucifer falling a part of that plan?” Raphael asked, nothing but curiosity in her voice.

Azrael watched all of this unfold from the sidelines. She had wanted to see the progress of Eden, but had found her mother there instead, soon joined by her twin. She watched on, a looming feeling of dread that she just couldn’t seem to shake falling over her.

“I.. Can’t quite answer that,” mother said.

“Oh. Well, what about why you’re creating humans? There’s a bunch of others, they’re kinda.. Plain? They don’t have any powers or anything,” Raphael asked.

Mother didn’t answer. Raphael took this as a sign to continue. “How come you’re putting the tree of knowledge so close to them but telling them not to touch it?”

“There are some things I can’t answer, Raphael. It’s better if you do not ask,” The Allmighty finally spoke.

“But why? You do know the answers don’t you? And you said they’ll have to choose? Why do they have to? Why can’t they just be? And what are they even choosing between?” Raphael asked, growing increasingly more frustrated and exasperated.

“Raphael,” she said softly, but still with the same conviction as a threat. “I can’t tell you this.”

“But why?” Raphael asked.

The Allmighty stood. Raphael stood with her. She lifted her hand and pressed it to Raphael’s cheek. The Archangel’s eyes fluttered shut, her body going limp, and her mind falling unconscious.

“You’ll find out for yourself,” she whispers, almost too quiet for Azrael to pick up. 

Raphael’s body fades, but not into nothingness, just somewhere else. Azrael had done the same to herself enough times to know. 

“I know you’re there, Azrael,” The Allmighty says.

Azrael blinks nervously, stepping out from behind a tree, shaking the leaves out of her dark wings. The Allmighty walks towards her and Azrael is scared that she’ll do the same to her as she’s done to Raphael. She only places a hand on her daughter’s shoulder and speaks.

“Adam and Lilith will be down there soon. They’ll have to kill to survive, and eventually they’ll die as well. I want you to go down there and collect the living creatures’ souls for me after Death takes them from their bodies. Can you do that for me?” she asks.

Azrael nods, afraid to speak. 

“She won’t be back for a while. You can go after her, but I want her to find the answers to her questions for herself. If all goes as it should, she’ll be much better off for it, and she’ll teach us to be too,” she says.

And with that, she leaves, and the gates have darkened significantly. Azrael shifts. She won’t be going with Amenadiel and Micheal later today. She needs time to figure out what just happened and where to go from here.


	2. A significant lack of limbs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raphael wakes up in the void, falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pain TW!! A summary for if you'd like to avoid it completely:  
Raphael finds herself falling through the void and ends up in a pool of boiling sulfur. In an attempt to stop the pain, she possesses a snake. He then falls asleep.

Raphael first notices the fact that she is no longer standing on solid ground. She’s not even standing at all. In fact, she’s on her back.

The second thing she notices is that she is falling. Falling through what seems to be a void of nothingness. She’s strangely calm, for all that she’s woken abruptly and is falling. It’s gradually getting warmer as she falls and what lead up to this is a bit blurry. She’d definitely had a chat with Mom, although not a pleasant one. And she had plans. With one of her siblings. Something or other with Amenadiel. 

The third thing she notices, which shakes her from her relatively peaceful reverie, is the fact that she can’t feel her arms and legs and there’s a pain slowly spreading from the base of her wings from where they start by her shoulder blades. Although she’s trying her best to move, the best she does is shift around a little, which only makes her fall faster. It’s getting hotter now and the pain isn’t just in her wings anymore. 

Behind, or technically under her, there is a dim reddish orange light. Like fire. And a sulfurous smell progressively getting worse. Raphael falls and falls and then suddenly she’s not falling anymore, she’s drowning and everything hurts.  _ Oh God, why does it hurt?  _

It’s the worst she’s ever felt. Every single part of her feels as if it could fall apart and leave her nothing but a charred stain on the ground. She thrashes around, blind and sore, but eventually she regains enough sense to know that in order to get out, she has to go in one direction consistently. She reaches the edge and crawls out, gasping for breath, hoping that the effort of breathing will take her mind off the hot pain still attacking her. It doesn’t.

She attempts to heal herself. It does work to some degree, although not enough to want to stay in this particular body. She flees and the pain lessens, but doesn’t diminish completely. In a hurry, she possesses the closest thing to her, a large and lengthy noodle-like thing with a distinct lack of limbs. Raphael quietly apologizes to the snake. He’s always rather liked snakes, going so far as to put two on his staff. Suddenly his perception of heat enhances and his vision grows so much worse. Now isn’t the time to dwell on that. 

He sets off to put as much distance as possible between himself and the lake of boiling sulphur. He comes upon a group of people. A group of demons. There were hundreds of them. Some in their original bodies, some taking the bodies of various animals who’d found their way to hell as Raphael had. 

There, going around and giving orders was Lucifer. He was unharmed for the most part, although he looked a bit ashy and burned. He was distracting himself and the demons, trying to make everything more comfortable for them. He was currently giving orders for the demons who could create to start working on a system to create new bodies for those who’d lost theirs. Raphael decides it’s in his best interest to lay down and sleep for a while. Maybe when he wakes up, he’ll hurt less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've decided to continue this,, no idea where it'll end up bit I have a few chapters written, mostly focusing on Raphael/Crowley. Let's see what unfolds.


	3. It's Tempting....

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crawley's name change and first assignments.

When Raphael awakes, it’s early. He doesn’t hurt as much as he did before, everything is just rather dull now. He doesn’t know where to go from here. This is all so new to him. And suddenly he finds himself scared for the future, for what is to come, and he hates it. Why? How could this happen? What does he do now? Does this mean he’s a demon now? 

He doesn’t want to be a demon, demons are supposed to be bad and he isn’t bad, he’s just curious and that isn’t bad and- he doesn’t like the existential crisis that’s making it’s way into his mind. He decides to take his mind off it and be productive.

He can’t find Lucifer anywhere, but he does see someone who looks to be relatively in charge. They’re short with scruffy black hair that looks to have had the ends of it burned off. Resolutely, he slithers up to them.

“What can I do?” he asks.

They glance at him. “What wazzz your name?”

Raphael opens his mouth. He closes it again. He had no idea what to tell them. He couldn’t use Raphael, obviously. Although it would be convenient, it would get him recognized by all the wrong people. He tells them the first name that comes to mind. “Crawley.” 

He then mentally recoils. Crawley. He’s told them his name is Crawley. He’ll be stuck with this name which is hardly even a name until he can think of a better one. He has some regrets. 

Then the person (he dubs them Buzzy until he can get their real name) hums. “Well, Lucifer wantzzz zzzomeone to go and tempt the humans. Zzzpite God, you know?”

He could do that! He was in the mood for spite, really. And maybe it would get him a permanent job on earth. He’s always liked the idea of earth and he figures it’ll be a nice change. 

“I can do it,” Raphael, or maybe he should start thinking of himself as Crawley, says.

Buzzy gives him a hard stare. Ultimately, they sigh and say, “Alright. I’ll tell him I’ve found someone for the job. Once you’re done, come back and report what happened.”

Crawley nods and follows the instructions Buzzy (Beelzebub, they correct him when he calls them Buzzy out loud) gives him on how to get to the hell/earth door. 

He slithers through and finds he’s underground. He pauses for a moment, not having expected to be underground. He then pushes up out of the ground, snake instincts taking over and having him flick his tongue and inspect his surroundings. There are so many new sensations and it almost discourages him for a moment, but then he thinks about why he’s here and why he even got this task in the first place and fills with spite and determination. He finds Adam and Eve quickly, although he opts to watch them and see which would be the best way to tempt them. 

“I’ve been here so much longer than you, Eve,” Adam says, rolling his eyes. “I know exactly what I’m doing. Not like you’d get that.”

Eve..? What happened to Lilith? Crawley thinks.

Eve, the woman standing next to him, is not impressed. “Well, go ahead then. Prove me wrong.”

Adam scoffs and shoves a sharpened stick into the pond, completely missing the fish he is aiming for and scaring the fish away. They both stand there, Eve with a sort of “I told you so” look and Adam looking absolutely dumbfounded.

“The fish moved before I could get it,” he says.

“Like I said, it’s the water, it makes the fish look like they’re in different places than they really are,” Eve says.

“Whatever, woman,” Adam says. 

Crawley kind of just.. Sits there. Was Adam supposed to be this condescending? No, surely he couldn’t be. Why would Mom do that? But she wasn’t stopping him either? He sees a figure by the entrance of the garden. She’s pretty, she has beautiful hair, and she is absolutely pissed. Crawley slithers over to talk to her.

“How dare he!” she growls as soon as he’s close enough for her to engage in conversation. 

Crawley doesn’t feel like it’d be a good idea to interrupt so he lets her continue. “I leave for two days and he’s already got a new woman. And he’s being just as much of a dead bug to her as he was to me. Always trying to one up me and he thinks he’s so much better just because he was created first.”

And then it hits him. This is Lilith. Things must not have worked out for the two and Lilith probably left for some time alone. Oh that had to hurt. 

“What happened?” Crawley asks.

“I refused to submit to him,” Lilith says, glaring at Adam and Eve, who are both oblivious to the conversation going on. “And really, I don’t care about her. Not her fault that Adam’s such a jerk. In fact, she probably wants out too. I wouldn’t blame her. And what does God intend to do after she’s gone? Give him another wife? At what point does this end?”

“I was actually sent here to stir up some trouble. I could push them away from each other, maybe teach him a lesson, if you’d like,” Crawley suggested. 

Lilith finally looks at him. “I like your plan. Alright, do whatever. I’m not planning on going back to him anyway.”

Crawley nods- or does as best as he can, being a snake and all. Lilith looks satisfied and leaves the garden. Crawley follows the two remaining humans around until nightfall. He then leaves to report his findings to Beelzebub.

Beelzebub’s response is to nod and take note of it, telling Crawley they’ll tell Lucifer about it later on and that Crawley is free to do whatever until further notice. 

For the next few days, Crawley hears nothing at all from Beelzebub, or Lucifer, or anyone really. He spends his time learning how to shift his new body. He’ll later find out that Lucifer had somehow convinced Eve to have an affair with him, and when that got him nowhere, he decided to call Crawley back in.

The extent of his instructions was ‘get up there and cause trouble’ which wasn’t descriptive by any means but he had quickly found he had no pull here in this strange new land. He didn’t ask for more details.

He pushes up through the ground dramatically and finds Eve relatively soon. She stands alone, looking pretty bored. This shouldn’t be that difficult, right? Eve catches sight of him and though she doesn’t move away, she looks apprehensive. 

Crawley doesn’t have any idea what he should say once he gets to her. What could he tempt her with? Then he realizes the tree God had said she didn’t want them touching was right there. And then Crawley has a plan. 

“Hey, you should eat an apple from that tree,” Crawley says.

“Why?” Eve asks. It’s a good question.

“Because if you eat it, you’ll know things. Because if you eat it, you’ll know more than Adam, he’s been trying to tell you he knows more than you, right? And because you can,” Crawley responds.

“Adam said that God didn’t want us to,” Eve says, but she looks like she’s very much considering it.

“Why listen to him? And you haven’t even met Her. Why do you think she’d tell you not to eat from this specific tree?” Crawley asks. 

“That’s a good question,” Eve says after a moment. “I think I will.”

She walks over to the tree and reaches up, plucking an apple from the branches. And suddenly there’s things that she knows that she didn’t before. She knows she’s completely naked. She knows what Adam has been doing to her isn’t fair. She knows that this is a demon. She knows so much that she isn’t sure how to put it into words. Feelings that she has, and things that she thinks. And she wants to share it. Maybe if Adam realizes that it’s not fair, and knows these emotions, and feels this knowledge, he’ll understand finally.

She goes to find him. Crawley slithers into the trees. He can’t hear what they’re saying but he knows that Adam eats it as well. And suddenly it’s bright in the garden. Crawley recognizes this light and flees. He’s sure he hasn’t been noticed but who knows with Her. And from a distance, he sees the two being evicted from Eden. And he can’t look anymore so he just.. Hides. And feels so guilty. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.

And then it’s over. She’s gone, and so are the humans, making their way out of the garden. And Crawley, for the thousandth time since the fall, has no idea what he should be doing.

And he spots the angel on the gate, a sort of worried look on his face. So Crawley decides spontaneously that he’s going to spite God some more. See just how far he can push before he too gets kicked out. Why not, right? 

So he climbs the wall. It’s a very tall wall, but he does it. He shifts his form into something a bit less scaly to have a chat with this angel, who he’s sure he’s seen somewhere before.

“Well that went down like a lead balloon,” he finds himself saying as a conversation starter in a bout of recklessness and confidence. 

The angel chuckles a little nervously. “Sorry, what was that?” 

Crawley turns to him and says, “I said, ‘Well that went down like a lead balloon.”

The angel nods a bit. “Yes, yes. It did, rather.  
And Crawley knows he watched the whole thing go down, which only makes him wonder more why the angel didn’t stop him. “Bit of an overreaction if you ask me. First offence and everything, eh?”

And he knows that this isn’t exactly out of character for God, the same happened to him. But all the same, it wasn’t fair.

“I can’t see what’s so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway,” he says and maybe he’s trying to convince the angel to feel the same or maybe he’s venting in an odd, roundabout sort of way.

The angel, in the worried tone of realizing that Crawley has a point but he doesn’t want to believe it, says, “Well, it must be bad..”

“Crawley,” Crawley says once he realizes the angel is asking for his name.

“Crawley. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have tempted them into it,” he finishes.

“Oh, they just said ‘Get up there and make some trouble.’” Crawley says.

“Well, obviously, you’re a demon. It’s what you do,” the angel says, and Crawley really has to figure out where he knows him from because he doesn’t want to keep mentally calling him the angel.

“Not very subtle of the Almighty though. Fruit tree in the middle of a garden with a ‘don’t touch sign’. I mean, why not put it on the top of a high mountain? Or on the moon?” Crawley looks at the angel, who is very determinedly Not Looking at him. “Makes you wonder what God’s really planning.”

“Best not to speculate. It’s all part of the great plan. It’s not for us to understand. It’s ineffable,” the angel says, sounding a lot like Gabriel.

And he is probably very right, but Crawley is running solely on spite now. 

“The Great Plan’s ineffable?” Crawley mimics. 

“Exactly,” the angel says. “It is beyond understanding and is incapable of being put into words.”

But Crawley doesn’t pay much attention to the last sentence because he finally recognizes the angel. “Didn’t you have a flaming sword?”

And the angel visibly panics. “Uh..”

“You did, it was flaming like anything. What happened to it?” Crawley asks. 

The angel stammers again and Crawley pushes a little more. “Lost it already, have you?” 

The angel mumbles, “Gave it away.”

Crawley can’t believe what he’s hearing. “You what?”

“I gave it away!” the angel, Aziraphale says and Crawley definitely heard correctly. Aziraphale looks concerned. “There are vicious animals. It’s going to be cold out there and she’s expecting already! And I said ‘Here you go, flaming sword, don’t thank me. And don’t let the sun go down on you here.’ I do hope I didn’t do the wrong thing.”

He remembers the ceremony, gifting that specific flaming sword to him and naming him the Guardian of the Eastern Gate. He didn’t present the sword or title himself, but he made a point to remember every single angel’s name that he came across so that if he ever ran into them, he’d be able to hold a conversation.

And Crawley is back to teasing him, amused. “Oh, you’re an angel, I don’t think you can do the wrong thing.”

But Aziraphale doesn’t pick up on the fact he’s teasing. “Oh, oh, thank you- oh thank you. It’s been bothering me.”

And in the distance, Adam fights a lion. The pair on the wall watch while they converse. 

“And I’ve been worrying too. What if I did the right thing with the whole ‘eat the apple’ business? A demon can get into a lot of trouble for doing the right thing. It’d be funny if we both got it wrong, eh? If I did the good thing and you did the bad one,” Crawley suggests. 

Aziraphale laughs a little before frowning and resolutely saying, “No. It wouldn’t be funny at all.”

Crawley shrugs and mutters, “Well.”

And it starts raining. Crawley, still cold blooded despite not being completely snake anymore, steps closer to Aziraphale for warmth. Aziraphale is sympathetic and covers Crawley with a great white wing. It’s getting dark and in the distance is Eve and Adam, figuring out their first night in the desert surrounding Eden. 

And Crawley decides that Earth isn’t a bad place to be and that he rather likes Aziraphale. Aziraphale is different. Instead of asking, he does. And maybe that’s where Crawley went wrong. But Crawley doesn’t regret it. In truth, Heaven’s policies were getting to be too much for him. They stand in silence, the patter of the rain all around them. And Crawley thinks it wouldn’t be too bad to get to know Aziraphale more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter three my dudes!!! Special thanks to my beta reader, I sent him like three chapters all at once to proofread and he still helped on them. A very good dude.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Assignments are given.

Over the next few months, things change. Hell establishes a hierarchy and gives specific assignments. Lilith becomes the first and only non-angelic demon, although with what Crawley's heard it isn't likely she'll stay the only for long. She's, as Aziraphale put it with Eve, expecting. Crawley wonders what this kid will be like since they're not entirely human but they're also not quite the same kind of demon as the others, as Lilith is still mostly human biologically and the father isn't. Rumors say they're Azazel's. Crawley... Would rather not think about it. 

Crawley isn't surprised when he's assigned to Earth. And he's rather glad. Hell is stuffy and he hates it there. He'll take any excuse to leave. He hasn't spoken to Lucifer or Azrael or Amenadiel or any of his siblings and he's just so so lonely. 

So he leaves quickly. He follows Adam and Eve and their kids and sometimes interacts with them, but he finds the large groups of humans in other places vastly more interesting.

They're building temples to gods who didn't even exist before they believed them into existence. And the gods they've made are a little questionable but so fun to hang around. Crawley is having a pretty good time for a while. 

He finds friends in Loki, who's very cynical but often funny, and Dionysus who knows how to go absolutely feral to have a good time. Hermes is crafty and ready to go along with every elaborate plan Crawley thinks of. Frey and Apollo have never met, but both sympathize with Crawley's instinct to heal and love. He thinks they might make good friends. Anubis is a lot like Azrael, which might be because they're both associated with death or it could just be their personalities. 

So Crawley isn't alone anymore. Still maybe avoiding his siblings but not alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this chapter an excuse to vaguely imply the existence of the Riordanverse even when I will likely never bring it up again? Yes. Is this chapter really short because I had no idea what else to put here? Yes. Ok but seriously this chapter is sorta the beginning of the short interlude explaining more about the effect Crowley being Raphael has on the universe and the effect on the relationships that he has with everyone and how it plays a role in the plot.

**Author's Note:**

> Yo!! I did a thing!! Uh I'm not sorry. No I don't believe this Raphael is Crowley theory could be canon but in fanon its fun to play with, especially since the Lucifer and Good Omens fandom meld together so easily. Maybe because Neil Gaiman worked on both?  
I feel like pre-fall Crowley was a bit naive, questioning God but not realizing that that was what got the others in trouble in the first place? And being an Archangel just adds to that because he probably never had to deal with people denying him answers before, so this is a totally new experience, but "it's just a question, what could go wrong?"  
To explain the verb tense changing halfway through:  
The first time I changed it, I was thinking of writing it down in my mind and thinking of what phrasing to use. My mind immediately changed tenses and I decided that it was something i could use to make the reader feel like the beginning is them being filled in on what happened to lead up to it and then to make them feel as if they're standing with Azrael as she's watching all this go down.  
My phone kept autocorrecting Raphael to Racheal so of you see that I'm sorry please tell me.  
I have more in the works, maybe not with this particular story but with something close. Let me know if you want to see this story continued though and what kind of plot you'd like if I did.


End file.
